Grundtvig, NIKOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN

Grundtvig, NIKOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN, Danish poet and theologian, was born at Udby, in Zealand, 8th September 1783. He first became known as the author of Northern Mythology (1808; 3d ed. enlarged and revised, 1870) and Decline of the Heroic Age in the North (1809). These were followed in 1814 by the Rhyme of Roeskilde and the Roeskilde Saga, and in 1815 by a collection of patriotic songs (Kvædlinger). About the same time he took his stand as a witness against the current irreligion and rationalism. As time went on he became the head of a religious school, the Grundtvigians, who strove to free the church from the interference of the state, and to approximate to the ideal of independent religious communes. His religious views got firm hold of the hearts of the people throughout the three countries of Scandinavia. Besides this he was instrumental in raising the educational condition of the peasantry. In 1825 Grundtvig, for a vehement attack upon one of the chief representatives of the prevalent rationalism, was fined and suspended from preaching, the suspension lasting until 1832. During all these years his pen was never idle. In 1818 he had begun the translation into Danish of Snorri Sturluson and Saxo Grammaticus; and in 1820 he published a Danish translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. As a writer of secular and sacred poetry he stands high in his countrymen's regards; his son published his Poetiske Skrifter (6 vols.) in 1880-85. From 1839 Grundtvig preached in the church of Vartov Hospital in Copenhagen, after 1861 with the title of bishop, though he held no see. He died 2d September 1872. The works of his later years include The Seven Stars of Christendom (1860; 3d ed. 1883) and Church Mirror (1871), a collection of addresses.—His son, SVEND HERSLEB (1824-83), from 1869 professor of Scandinavian Philology at Copenhagen, edited Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser (1853-83), other collections of folk-tales, and Sæmund's Edda (1868; 2d ed. 1884).